


Cake

by paliwali



Category: Original Work
Genre: A lot of Candy, Afterlife, Elf, Gen, POV Second Person, Rainbow cake, Reader Death, Violence, Weirdness, and I mean a LOT of candy, kind of?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-20
Updated: 2018-09-20
Packaged: 2019-07-14 14:07:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16042016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paliwali/pseuds/paliwali
Summary: You've tasted the rainbow. Now what?





	Cake

You step back and marvel at your work. A beautiful frosted cake, made by your own hands, set upon an ornate pearly cake stand. You can’t resist it. You don’t want to. 

“Come to me,” you murmur, inching toward its luscious frosting curls. There is a knife on the counter. You take it and continue your advance. You’re so close now. You position the knife for the perfect slice. It slides easily through the cake. One more cut, and you wiggle the knife under the slice to pull it out. 

Gorgeous rainbow-colored layers covered in a thick, white frosting. It turned out _perfectly_. You carefully transfer the perfect slice to a plate before grabbing a fork from the silverware drawer. Lining it up just right, you stab your fork into the slice, pulling off the perfect bite. You tentatively bring the forkful of cake to your parted lips and surround it. 

_Can you find heaven in a slice of cake?_ you wonder as you chew. Soon, you’ve finished the entire slice. But you want more. You _need_ more. So, you have more. You dive your fork into the mass of cake and pull off a large chunk, stuffing it into your face hole. You pull off another chunk as you chew, and once you swallow you shove _that_ chunk into your face. You continue this until the cake is half gone, and then you forego the fork, tossing it to the side, and start grabbing huge chunks of cake with your bare hands. It isn’t long before you have devoured the entire cake. All of it. Every crumb and every bit of frosting. All gone. 

You aren’t sure what came over you. All you know is that you felt this overwhelming urge to eat cake. Once you’d had that first bite, it was all over. But you don’t feel that urge now that the cake is gone. Finally satisfied, you head over to your couch to digest all that cake. You lay down and almost immediately pass out, waking the next morning. 

As soon as you wake up, you dash to the bathroom, hastily undoing your pants on the way. That cake worked its way through your system and you need the toilet _now_. You sit, sighing in relief, as the digested cake works its way out of you. You finish, redo your pants, and turn to flush, but before you do, something catches your eye. 

_Are... are those_ butterflies? you think. _Is that_ glitter? You step away from the toilet. You can’t help it. You start to laugh uncontrollably, deep in your stomach. Several moments of laughter later, you stop suddenly and hunch over. Before you can comprehend what’s happening, you vomit all over the bathroom floor. 

“Oh, geez,” you groan, still feeling ill. It takes you a minute to realize that you just vomited rainbow sprinkles. Out of the mess of sprinkles pop several tiny winged creatures. _Fairies?_ you wonder. You stagger backward and fall, catching yourself on the edge of the sink. “Fairies,” you hesitantly say aloud. “Freaking fairies? I just puked fairies? And sprinkles?” You shake your head fervently. “Nope. Nuh uh. This has gotta be some kind of freakish cake-induced nightmare.” 

You stand, still supporting yourself with the sink, and turn to open the door. You take a step forward and slip, backpedaling to the bathtub. You steady yourself against the side of the tub and take another step, this time trying to be cautious. You slip again, this time falling backward onto the edge of the bathtub. The impact cracks your head open. Disoriented, you look around. You notice a goopy, dark red substance dripping from your head wound. It smells sweet and fruity. _Raspberry?_ is your last thought before you pass out. 

\--- 

You wake up in an unfamiliar place. A house, but not your own. The last thing you remember is falling in your bathroom, and then smelling chocolate mixed with raspberry. You carefully touch your head in the spot you were injured. It seems fine, so you get up and look around. 

You find an open window, and when you look through it, you can’t believe your eyes. Instead of green grass, there is what appears to be a field of red licorice sticks leading to a beach of yellow-orange sand and a large body of foamy water. Instead of white, fluffy clouds, there are bright pink, fluffy clouds. The hills to the left are covered in flowers, which look as if they are sparkling. To the right, large white mountains loom in the distance. The air itself smells cloyingly sweet. 

You turn away from the window and come face to face with another person. A very small person. The wide grin plastered on his face makes you feel very uncomfortable. 

“Well, hi there!” he says in a goofy voice. 

You back away. “What... _are_ you?” 

The grin doesn’t fade. It may even have grown wider. “I’m an elf! Can’tcha tell?” he divulges gleefully, gesturing to his sharply pointed ears. 

“O-okay...” you respond, unsure of how to react. “So where... where am I?” 

“You’re in Other World!” the elf practically shouts. He continues, ignoring your obvious discomfort. “You don’t seem to be very quick on the uptake! This is Other World, where people come after they die in such a way as you did!” 

“I-I’m _dead_?” you ask, incredulous. You can’t believe it. You stagger to the nearest chair and sink into it. “ _Dead_ ,” you whisper, still shaken by disbelief. You turn your head toward the elf. He still wears that unbearable toothy smile. “Are you _sure_?” 

“Sure as sugar!” He walks across the room to you and pulls you out of your chair. “Let’s turn that frown upside down! Come on over here and I’ll show ya around!” He pulls you to the other side of the house and out the front door. You notice a path leading from the door, but it doesn’t look anything like a normal path should. It looks like octagonal slabs of blue glass. The elf catches you staring at the pale stepping stones and points at some shards lying next to the path. “Try some! The rock candy paving stones are delicious!” 

You let out a feeble chuckle. “Um... maybe later.” 

“Suit yourself!” The elf turns away and trots down the path toward a cobblestone road. You assume he expects you to follow and do so, quickly walking out to the road behind him. 

You gaze at the stones and mortar, wondering what sort of confection lay before you. The stones are many different colors. Dull greens and blues, vibrant reds and yellows, and shades of black and white. Every stone is bound to the road by some sort of solid dark brown substance. You look back up at the elf and ask, almost tentatively, “Is the road made of candy, too?” 

“Of course!” the elf exclaims, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “The whole road’s made of chocolate! Chocolate pebbles and chocolate mortar!” 

You gape at him. “But... wouldn’t it melt in the sun?” 

For the first time since you encountered him, the elf’s wide grin falters, ever so slightly, but returns wider than ever in the blink of an eye. You can’t help but feel ill at ease around this creature. Ignoring your question, he turns back around and points to the sky. “See those pink puffs in the sky? Those are the Cotton Candy clouds! They’re all made of cotton candy! And they’re inhabited by a group of friendly flying dragons!” 

He turns to the south, where you saw the hills covered in flowers. “Those hills are part of Sparkleflower Meadows, featuring native sparkleflowers in every conceivable color! The meadows extend beyond those hills to Maple Lake, so you have plenty of space to frolic with the resident unicorns! And when you’re done frolicking, cool off in the lake! It’s real maple syrup, not that fake stuff they sell in the living world!” 

He does a 180 and faces north. “Those mountains over yonder are the Fake Snow-y Mountains, home of a large populations of yeti! As cold as those mountains are, they’re dry as a bone! All the snow you see there is fake! It’s actually piles upon piles of sweet shredded coconut and whipped meringue!” 

He turns back to you. “To the east is Oenarg Beach, on the edge of the great Soda Sea! As you can probably guess, the entire sea is made of sweet, delicious soda! Citrus soda, to be precise! Take a dip and swim with mermaids, or stay on the beach and make a sandcastle out of the orange-flavored sugar sand!” 

“What’s west?” you wonder. 

“The only thing west of here is Candy Cane Lane, where the road is paved and lined with peppermint sticks!” 

“Where does it lead?” 

“Nobody knows! No one has ever made it to the end!” His grin belies the seriousness of his tone. You get the feeling he doesn’t want you to go near Candy Cane Lane. 

“So where are all the people?” You look around at the ten quaint cottages lining the chocolate cobblestone road. Eight cottages sit alongside the road, one side a mirror image of the other. Two more sit at each end. One of those end cottages is the one you emerged from. 

“People?” He lets loose a series of hearty guffaws. You aren’t sure why he’s laughing. Did you say something funny? 

“People,” he says, wiping a tear from his eye. “There are no people!” 

“What?” You don’t understand. Why else would there be so many homes here? 

“Yup! You and I are the only ones here!” the elf says in a chipper voice. He beams at you. “So, kid! Whatcha gonna do first?” 

You think for a moment, uncertain now that you know you and the elf are the only ones around. While you think, your stomach growls loudly. “Well, what do you have to eat around here?” 

“You’re looking at it!” he cries delightedly. He twirls around, arms outstretched. “You can eat aaaaanything!” He stops, seemingly dizzy, hands going to his knees to support himself. “Even the houses!” 

Your stomach sinks. Sugar? Confections? Just that? For the rest of eternity? You shake your head. You need to find a way out of here. “You said people who die the way I did come here afterward, so where are they?” you stammer. 

The elf doesn’t laugh this time. In fact, he seems angry because you asked a second time. His grin has disappeared and his eyes have narrowed. “There _is_ nobody else. You are the only person who has ever died in such a manner.” 

“But... the houses! There are all these houses! Why are there so many houses here if there are no other people?” 

The elf cracks a smile once again, but this grin isn’t his previous ecstatic grin. His eyes remain narrowed. His expression is much more sinister compared to his earlier, almost creepy, excitement. His voice deepens to a terrifying growl as he says, “It’s just you and me here.” 

You begin to shake as the realization dawns on you. You clutch the sides of your head and crouch into a ball. You know where you really are. You know _exactly_ where you are. But why here? How did you end up here? The question of why runs over and over through your mind. You don’t know. You have no idea what caused you to be sent here. It’s too much. It’s all too much. The overwhelming sense of doom you feel rises up and out through your throat in a bloodcurdling scream.

**Author's Note:**

> I guess I like writing really weird and morbid stuff. I've had the basic idea for this story for over 7 years now and I'm SO HAPPY it's finally written and I'm SO HAPPY with how it turned out. Not to mention this is the fastest I've ever written anything of this length and holy crap I'm proud of myself. :)
> 
> Also, while I was writing the end, I realized that I unintentionally made the entire theme "gluttony" so I was wondering: If I made this part of a series of short stories based on the seven deadly sins, would you read it? Honestly curious.
> 
> Thanks for reading!!


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